I imagine a scene, long ago, in the town of Corleone, in the heartland of Western Sicily.

I see Doctor Michele Navarra (right). A classic valetudinarian; a sensitive and haunted expression playing across his features. The face of a man who had sold his soul to the Mafia and the devil for an excellent price, as English author Norman Lewis…

The man who appeared to be always photographed with a perpetual sneer on his face, seemingly had a temperament to match. Like many short men, he made up for lost inches with a bombastic, in-your-face approach to life. He is best remembered by the media for the way he treated women, rather than for his prowess as a gangster, although he was skilled in…

'Do you understand me, now when you got a guy that steps out of line and this and that, now you got the whip. You got the fuckin' whip. This is what he, Tony Corallo, tells me all the time, a strong union makes money for everybody, including the wise…Continue

In those last few seconds, as his life was disappearing like an evanescent breath, nothing to protect him, no salvation at hand, his thoughts must have been perhaps his wife and children; his family to be torn apart by his sudden and awful ending. Did he cry out in frustration at the inevitability of this act of duplicity locking him into this act of ultimate violence; or the venal manoeuvre that enticed him into a cul-de-sac from which there could be no escape? The… Continue

Any one interested in the subject of Italian-American organized crime, is probably familiar with the story concerning Charlie Luciano’s final departure from New York.

After serving 10 years of a thirty year sentence for compulsory prostitution, he was released from prison by the very man who sent him away, New York State Governor, Thomas Dewey, transferred to Ellis Island in New York Harbour, and on February 10th 1946, sailed away on a rust-bucket of a steam… Continue

It begins and ends with a man who had a name that sounded like a musk melon.

His impact on the American Mafia was much more than to just have helped the law incarcerate a man who at the time, they considered perhaps the most powerful hoodlum in the country. By helping to nail him and thus sending him to prison, he created a chain of events that would have perhaps, the most significant repercussions on Italian-American organized crime since its recognized… Continue

As his nephew drove away from the drop-off, Galante walked into the restaurant, whose front windows were masked by yellow curtains. It was a favourite meeting place, where he often arranged sit-downs with his closest associates. Knickerbocker Avenue had for over 50 years been the turf of the Bonanno crime family, according to… Continue

It was not quite the dog days of August, but almost. The temperature was in the upper eighties by mid-day, baking the cracked asphalt that shimmered under the relentless rays of the noon-day sun, beating down on the city like a blow-torch, tempered by the 80 degrees of humidity.

In Bushwick, Brooklyn, inland from whatever on-shore breezes may have been blowing in from the East River, there was no relief from the wilting heat. Granita peddlers pushing carts…

He went to church every Sunday in Deal, New Jersey, with his wife and three daughters. The kids in the neighbourhood called him 'cump.' He had a home there on five acres, where he raised prize ducks, that was valued at $400,000. By to-days standards, many millions. He was short and squat with thinning hair, brushed straight back and whenever you see a photo of him, he's wearing the most hideous, hand-painted silk ties.

Way back in 1955, Alfred Hitchcock made this great movie called ‘The Trouble with Harry’ starring John Forsythe. An offbeat, hilarious black comedy about a bothersome corpse that keeps getting buried and then keeps re-appearing, causing all sorts of problems for peaceful neighbours in a New England township.

There was another Harry who caused all sorts of people, all sorts of problems, often involving dead bodies, but for quite different reasons.

The man with the heavy black beard had left his comfortable, six-room apartment at 130 West Twelfth Street. It was late in the morning, and he had to go to his office; but first he had a lunch meeting.

It was January 11th, 1943.

There were four of them gathering late on this morning, and they went to eat at one of his favourite restaurants- John’s- also on Twelfth Street, a few blocks east from where he lived. Opened in 1908, it still to this day… Continue

Described as small, lecherous and ugly, with a temperament to match, it’s hard to find anything redeeming in a life like his, cut short by the mid forties. He played one shady card too many, and found out the hard way that the mob doesn’t tolerate rats or double-crossers. It was only because of Joe Valachi that he made more than just a mention in the New York daily papers: another gangster taken for a one-way… Continue

Whatever they amounted to as a bunch of criminals, the derivation of their name is intriguing enough in itself. There seems to be more versions of its origin and meaning, than combinations of a Rubik Cube.

One story goes that two Hastings Street shopkeepers, whose places had been targets for the gang, said something like:

I think he is one of my favourite mobsters of all time. The one-eyed killer who couldn't shoot straight.

Most people have never heard of him. He never achieved any immortal status as a big player in the Mafia crime families of New York, although he longed for and lusted after it. He was probably the rule rather than the exception when it came to setting the standard for the street hoodlums that made up the rank and file of organized crime. A grifter,… Continue

To paraphrase that famous line from The Scarlet Pimpernel, 'they seek him here, they seek him there, trouble is, Jimmy’s buried everywhere.'

There never really was any serious doubt about why he was killed. There is somewhat less doubt about who was behind the killing. The thing that has really perplexed investigators, and not unnaturally his family and friends, is what happened to the body? He was questionably, the most… Continue

Michael Fiaschetti (photo right), 'Big Mike,' the boss of The Italian Squad, lounging back in a chair in his office, Police Headquarters, at 240 Centre Street, in downtown Manhattan, feet up on a pillar, doing a Henry Fonda like in 'My Darling Clementine,' jiggling his boots back and forth, doing a polka on… Continue